1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile terminal such as a feature phone, smartphone, and tablet, etc. with a call function that enables data communication and calling, or a texting function.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the recent years, smartphones have become popular with a wide range of people from children to the elderly, due to a large amount of information to be displayed as compared to feature phones, the spread of user-friendly applications, and easy character input by screen touch operations, for example, swiping, etc. Further, due to its user-friendliness, a smartphone user uses a smartphone not only as a means of conveying important matters as in the past, but as a means of laid-back communication, such as chatting and frequently sending instant messages that tweet only one's mood at that point of time. Therefore, from the standpoint of the receiving side of the smartphone user, the frequency of incoming calls that require communication, or the reception of messages such as e-mails during walking, or during movement by bicycle or car (hereinafter, appropriately called a “vehicle”) has increased significantly.
Further, in order not to displease the sender, the receiver tries to maintain the continuity of communication. Therefore, every time a call is received, the receiver tends to immediately answer the call, or reply to an e-mail. That is, the receiver operates the smartphone even during walking, or during movement by bicycle or car. Therefore, as a result of using smartphones during movement, the frequency of occurrence of a collision between pedestrians and between a pedestrian and vehicle, and a collision accident between vehicles, and derailing has also increased. The present invention focuses on the point that the continuity of communication takes effect passively, as the truth of human beings, and forces the user of the mobile terminal to continue with a call or game during movement, or create a reply e-mail and texting document. As a prior application made with a purpose of restricting the use of a cell phone while walking, an application is present in the Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-298690; however, the application attempts to restrict an operation during walking, and did not restrict the passive reaction of a user to a contact via an e-mail received from a third person and SNS (Social Networking Service) as described above, a call, or a game scenario having interactive elements and executed by a controller of the mobile terminal on the basis of a game program.
Such problems have become social problems, such as problems affecting human lives, particularly in countries where the means of transportation has developed and thoroughfares are packed with people, for example, a person may lose footing and fall on a railway track, which leads to the delay of the transportation by causing trains to stop, or a collision between bicycles.
Further, as another usage, smartphones are used as social games.
It is noted that a method and system of restricting calling during movement by vehicle have been proposed and implemented in cell phones (feature phones) prior to the launch of smartphones. For example, if a call is received on the cell phone of the driver or a fellow passenger during movement by vehicle, the location is measured twice, that is, at the time of receiving a call and after the lapse of a predetermined time (after five seconds) by a GPS (Global positioning system). The distance traveled and the movement speed is calculated from the measurement result, and it is determined whether or not the receiver is moving by vehicle. If the determination result indicates that the receiver is moving, the incoming call is ended after the cell phone has rung only for a predetermined time, and the receiver is thus prevented from taking the call (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-19674).
However, according to the conventional method and system, it is feared that if an incoming call is notified by a ring during the movement by vehicle, the driver may operate the mobile terminal either while moving or by bringing the vehicle to a sudden stop in order to maintain the continuity of communication.
Further, it is also possible to set the cell phone to a non-ringing mode, by a manual operation, before moving by vehicle, but the incoming call history is retained on the screen. Therefore, even if the cell phone does not ring, a person who frequently uses the e-mail, chat function etc. may constantly check the incoming call history displayed on the screen of the cell phone, and thus there is a possibility to lose the safety during movement.
In addition, if such a system is set in the cell phone by default, it could result in inconvenience whereby calling and operation of the cell phone of fellow passengers other than the driver would also be restricted.
Further, in the method described in the Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-19674 specified above, the use of the GPS, depending on the precision of the GPS, may cause another technical problem that it is extremely difficult to be able to accurately detect the movement within a period of five seconds, in the case of movement accompanied by walking or vehicles that move slowly such as bicycles. Such a system may be useful when moving in the Shinkansen, cars, bikes, or buses.
In addition, there is a problem that, when playing a game on the smartphone, the end time of the game and the timing when the user needs to move do not match, or they are difficult to be matched, and thus, even though the user of the cell phone remains stationary and plays a game, if the user faces a situation where the user has to move before the end of the game, the user had no choice but to move while playing the game.
The present invention has been achieved in view of the above-described problems, and an object thereof is to provide a mobile terminal with a call function or a texting function by which it is possible to prevent an owner of the mobile terminal from using, by a manual operation, the mobile terminal during the movement. With a method of using GPS for a maximum movement speed of 20 km/h or less, such as in the case of walking or riding a bicycle, it is difficult to instantly determine whether the mobile terminal is moving, and thus, the present invention particularly relates to a mobile terminal with a call function or a texting function that is suitable for such movement and a program of a cell phone that is controlled in cooperation with the function of the cell phone.